Act.15·[The Guardian]
Foreword:
Love is the seed of virtue.
--Dante Alighieri
Love is another name for understanding.
Rabindranath Tagore
Love makes cowards bold, but turns warriors into cowards.
[ --William Shakespeare]
Love is the flame of life; without it, everything turns to darkness.
[--Romain Rolland]
Love is the second sun in nature.
[ --George Chapman]
[Part 1: The Terror Legion]
Cliff Guderian is trapped in the transcendent spiritual pressure of the [Icon]. His former comrades, the pawns he used and then betrayed, and the innocent people he murdered—all are now dead spirits.
They took turns lining up to keep Cliff in the land of the dead, in Niflheim.
This is the soul power of the Lord of Cinder, the terrifying legion under Maddes Bruno's command.
At this very moment, everyone in the central square, every living being, had their bodies pierced by fine black lines.
These viscous spiritual threads, like strings in the hands of a puppeteer, erupted from the observation posts of the outpost at a speed exceeding 130 meters per second.
In Jiang Xueming's eyes, it was like a dark, colorful ball suddenly exploding. The dark threads seemed to possess sentience; even though he had taken precautions, using the swords formed from his spiritual arms to slash and deflect them, trying to avoid these insidious rays that were invisible to the naked eye, it was all in vain.
Dozens of black lines zigzagged and turned, drawing chaotic geometric shapes in the air before piercing Xue Ming's skull.
In an instant, he felt everything was flying away, and he didn't have time to take out the BOSS's Red Mountain Stone or perform the ritual of inviting the [god] to possess him.
The [Phoenix] game world in his eyes quickly dissipated, as if he had been blasted out of his body by a tremendous force, and was now able to observe his physical body directly from a third-person perspective.
This divine power was beyond Jiang Xueming's comprehension. Under the interference of the spirit's vision, he was dazzled and almost unable to make any movements.
The last time they were attacked by this strange and eerie soul power, they were 1,400 meters away, and the damage they felt was not serious; they only lost one of their senses.
This time, everyone on [JoeStar] is at the blast center of the [artificial sun].
Not just Xue Ming himself—
Even the two powerful reinforcements sent by the station couldn't escape this domineering spiritual pressure; they lost control of their bodies the moment the spiritual pressure exploded.
Seeing the world through the eyes of a spirit is a truly wondrous experience.
Everything seemed to have lost its edges and colors, but only things with energy and temperature could show some light. The human eye can distinguish the three primary colors of the spectrum, but the spirit is very different; it relies on sound waves and electromagnetism to determine the [shape] and [color] of matter.
Xue Ming saw his physical body standing stiffly, his brain and eyes still bright, the nerve signals in his body like trees, branching out into many branches and ends, and a faint current like a dense fishing net, tightly holding onto his spirit. His body seemed to be trying to pull his soul back into his body.
He wanted to raise his spirit's arm to grasp these fragile bolts of lightning, wanting to actively return to his body and reclaim his physical essence.
But he couldn't do it!
Absolutely impossible!
When he had a physical body, his spirit would obediently follow his instructions and transform into various tools for his use. But at this moment—without the support of matter and the protection of flesh and blood, Xue Ming felt as if his spirit and consciousness had sunk into a bottomless sea!
The eerie spiritual pressure emanating from near Niflheim intensified its assault on his mental world. Phoenix and the shield of the Steel Heart, he was like a wronged ghost drowning in a quagmire, forever condemned to eternal damnation.
Even moving a finger is as difficult as climbing to the sky.
The only thing left that could be controlled was the eyes, or what could be called [spiritual vision].
In the psionic vision, few enemies remained around the monument, and the few armed guards were also subjected to indiscriminate attacks from the Lord of Cinder's soul power.
Their physical bodies stood frozen, while their spirits were blasted dozens of meters away. If it weren't for the faint electromagnetic pulses emanating from their bodies connecting these glowing souls, Xue Ming would have almost thought that these people had died instantly when they were attacked.
Let's look at Teacher A Ling again--
Her spirit was like a ball of fire, like a phoenix spreading its wings.
She was battling the ethereal power of the Lord of Cinder. Without the support of a physical body, her soul, like a soaring bird, tried to help her body break free from the Lord of Cinder's restraints.
The diesel engine of the Big Frog was still running, but Xiao Qi in the driver's seat was already frozen in place.
Her Madness Index was extremely high. When attacked by the Soul Power of the Lord of Cinder, she almost flew to the South Wing of the RSH Armory, which was more than 140 meters away from here.
Xue Ming could sense a strong sense of unease from the various abnormal signals emanating from his physical body!
In this environment, the Inspiration transmission function of Steel Heart is unpredictable, but it can still do some things, such as informing each other of the mental state of their two owners.
At this moment, Bai Qingqing was almost disconnected from her physical body!
Xue Ming couldn't twist the spirit's neck, but in his field of vision, he could see the white, Bai Qingqing neural network light source in the driver's seat of the Big Frog flickering on and off, as if it might go out at any moment.
The human body is truly amazing.
--Just like after a wounded person has had a limb amputated, the brain can still experience phantom limb pain, mistakenly believing that part of the body still exists.
--If the spirit is too far away from the body, the body may actually think that its owner is dead, and stop breathing and having a heartbeat.
At that moment, Xue Ming was almost frantic with worry.
His spirit could not Bai Ziqing's physical body, nor could it discern the color of her skin. He was unable to determine the state of her metabolism and blood circulation. All medical common sense failed at this moment, and everything reassuring disappeared.
He could only make out the flickering bioelectric light source, like a candle flame in a storm, about to go out.
"Go save her!" Teacher A Ling roared.
When she looked at people in her spirit form, her expressions were incredibly rich. The woman frowned and glared angrily, her soul shining like a sun.
This soul-stirring, clear sound was like a thunderbolt, roaring out an endless, resounding rage from the mouth of the immortal phoenix.
When the sound waves carrying flames rushed towards Xue Ming's spiritual body, he felt his body lighten, as if the whole world had lit up—like a flame in the Dead Sea, evaporating the seawater to create a fan-shaped vacuum zone about twenty meters wide.
He can move now!
Just because of Teacher A Ling's shout, he broke free from the cage that had trapped him!
Xue Ming dared not waste a single moment, wanting to adapt to this new body—it was her first time being a ghost, and she didn't even know how she floated to her lover's side.
He struggled to adapt to the bizarre zero-gravity environment and began to swim like a fish, trying to rediscover the way his ancestors moved 540 million years ago. Only when he swung his arms and twisted his body could he clearly see what his spiritual form looked like.
--The two arms were a snow-white, metallic steel color, with exposed ball joints, unprotected by skin or soft tissue, and the knuckles looked like flexible steel wires twisted together.
Xue Ming looked down and saw the shattered lower body, the chest cavity empty, with a large keyhole in the middle, as if waiting for a key to unlock the heart.
The armor on the waist and abdomen is made of densely packed, rotten steel bars. After the twenty-sixth vertebra, nothing can be seen. This is the soul power before a butterfly matures, before it has completed its metamorphosis and cannot yet take flight.
A sharp shout came from behind me from Ms. A Ling.
"This is real damage! Kid, if your spirit is damaged, you might end up like Jason Megan, falling back into a pupa state, or even becoming a vegetable—attacks targeting the soul are unavoidable!"
"This guy's soul power is interesting! It shouldn't have been this strong originally! In Lord of Cinder form, its range and target detection have been greatly increased."
"I only have one thing to ask of you. Xiao Qi treats me like her own sister and her mother. I beg you, please don't let my sister, don't let my daughter, shed tears."
"Teacher A Ling," Xue Ming turned around and glanced back.
--At the observation tower, the phoenix transformed the flames on its body into a rainbow-colored feather robe, a "game prop" constructed by the Phoenix with its spirit. A Ling's soul power image is A Ling, a complete human form.
"Busy!" Avoiding the tangled threads, she finally managed to climb to the side of the tower, only to be suddenly slammed down by a huge, dark hand, which slammed her into the mud, leaving a large human-shaped mark.
Xue Ming saw a dark shadow emerge from the tower, and just looking at it made his eyes hurt.
It was a collection of the souls of hundreds or thousands of people, clinging to the container and transforming into the soul power of the Lord of Cinder.
That enormous fleshy hand just now was probably the essence of a giant's soul.
Before the Lord of Cinder could even make his official entrance, he was slammed against the tower wall by a fiery hand that resembled his own, and slowly slid down, looking quite disheveled.
"Hahahaha!" Teacher A Ling laughed heartily; laughter could dispel fear and uplift spirits.
The flames in her hands were like a magic box, capable of transforming into all sorts of strange and wonderful things. That giant slap from earlier was like those cheap promotional items sold in stacks on Pinduoduo for five yuan, only a genuine [powered version].
Straightening up from the mud, Maddes' face contorted in pain; he felt as if he had been rammed head-on into a wall by a wild horse.
He fell from the sixteen-meter-high watchtower into the mud, breaking both his legs. His body gradually recovered amidst the groans of his bones, protected by the Immortal Lune within him.
[Part ②: Inner Demons]
What kind of demon are you?
Maddes couldn't understand it--
--[ICON·Holy Statue]'s ability is invincible against ordinary people, capable of destroying the spiritual world of a living being almost instantly.
But this guy! This VIP! This mysterious Asian!
She could adapt to the spiritual pressure environment at the Niflheim border in just a few seconds. Without the support of a physical body, the wind pressure created by her spirit alone could generate an impact force of hundreds of kilograms.
The mysterious East has many alchemists and qi cultivators who use medicines or secret methods to guide and train spirits—could she be like that too? Does her soul frequently leave her body?
When Maddes got up, his right arm had just recovered from a fractured back.
"Who exactly are you? I'm very curious. To break free from the control of the [Statue] requires an extremely strong will, to fight against the resentment of thousands of dead souls within my body, and to overcome the inner demons induced by the spiritual pressure environment on the Niflheim border—VIP of the Abyssal Railway. Just who are you?"
"Who I am is unimportant." Before Su Ling finished speaking, her hands burst into flames, ready to strike.
Since the King of Cinder couldn't understand Chinese, he communicated in Italian before switching to English.
After listening for a long time, Su Ling finally understood.
--She ran to the body, as if showing off her lover, and pried open its mouth to reveal lily-shaped candies.
"I Get The Power Of Love!"
Love gives me strength!
"Maddes Bruno! What brought you here?! Was it your intelligence? Your ruthless methods? Your incredible luck? I think none of these answers are correct!"
Maddes's vision blurred, his pupils lost focus.
--The bright red figure that was originally a dozen meters away was now flying towards his face with a raised fist.
"Taste my love!"
On the other side of the battlefield—
Jiang Xueming struggled to move forward, finding it extremely difficult to cross the hundred-meter mark and reach Xiao Qi's spirit.
The reason is simple: because of this eerie spiritual pressure environment, Niflheim, true to its nickname "the land of the dead," is affected by the [icon]. From the ocean shores, countless spirits are returning to the human world to cause trouble for him!
Like the evil spirits and ghosts encountered by Cliff Guderian—
--Jiang Xueming encountered a terrifying spirit at the entrance of the canteen in the south building of the arsenal. It was the "inner demon" that Lord Maddes of Cinder spoke of, a local specialty of Niflheim.
That was a guard from the Skull and Bones Society and Bones Bock Gate, a grotesque figure with his head split open and half his head missing.
"Hey bro, so it was you who killed me, huh? Hehehehehe."
He pointed at Bai Qingqing's soul in the distance and threatened her in a low voice.
"I'm going to settle this score with you!"
He turned his head, his expression twisted with wild, ecstatic laughter.
"Don't worry, every wrong has its perpetrator, every debt its debtor. I won't lay a hand on your sweetheart. But if you want to save that girl, I'll have to make a hole in your head so you can pass through, just like you did to me."
Before they could finish speaking, they bumped into each other and were both startled.
Xue Ming had no idea who the victim was and had no recollection of him. His kill count averaged three lives a day, so how could he possibly remember which unfortunate soul it was?
When the dead souls of the Skull and Bones Society saw Jiang Xueming's spirit, they didn't recognize him for a moment, and the two stared at each other for a long time.
The Skull and Bones Society member screamed in alarm, "Could it be?! You've become even stronger? You've already ascended to immortality!"
Jiang Xueming had just transformed the spirit's arm into a knife, preparing to physically shatter the inner demons, when the knife was still in its final form, he saw the guards of Bork Pass fleeing towards the beachhead, determined to return to the land of the dead.
He escaped extremely quickly; if he had been prepared for that, the AK-12 probably wouldn't have hit him.
Jiang Xueming didn't know what to say.
He believes it is a great joy that these inner demons can have this self-awareness.
Before he could even relax—
"--Jiang Xueming!"
A cannibalistic demon jumped down from the second floor of the cafeteria; it was the manager of the Bock Hotel.
Xue Ming used his spirit form to create two steel maces, tested their weight, and was already in battle mode. "Mr. Wen Bucai didn't come. I've ascended to immortality. Are you sure? Are you serious?"
"Oh," the head steward, whose spine hadn't fully healed and whose ribs were still exposed, immediately calmed down, feeling rather bored, and waved goodbye. "I'm only interested in VIPs. We'll meet again after you've become a butterfly."
These mysterious spirits couldn't stop Xue Ming, but they made him extremely anxious.
If Xiao Qi also has to overcome these inner demons one by one...
Thinking this, he just pulled the weapon out of Dr. Wang Chenggui's mouth.
Xiao Qi's intermittently bright and dark soul state is likely a sign that she is dealing with a very powerful inner demon.
I wonder how things are going on the meteor shower.
--Hope he's alright
In front of the underpass.
Koman Sullivan's tattered body, pieced together, emerged from the mire of Niflheim, transformed into a gust of cold wind, and flew before Bu Liuxing's soul.
"Thank God! A wondrous fate has allowed me to extend this invitation to you once again as a servant of the true dragon. One cannot step into the same river twice! I believe in you! Brave Red Stone People —this time you won't refuse... wait, what's with that look in your eyes?"
"Such a good thing?!" Meteor rubbed his hands together, his body now resembling his original, un-transformed human form, except for his bright red Thumb spirit form. "This passion is surging from my chest! The familiar enemy is back! And his terrifying army!"
Sullivan finally realized something was wrong and tried to escape down the wet slope, but he couldn't get away.
A Xing thunderous roar came from behind.
"Before dawn! I'm going to that sea! Sullivan! You're a researcher! You must be curious too!"
A large, scalding hand gave a thumbs-up, then grabbed the evil scientist by the neck, like catching a chick.
"Use your brains to play the starting drumbeats!"
The fierce yet passionate man seized upon his inner demon, using its head to pound a resounding, fervent gong against the slogans of materialism.
Upon hearing the gong, people immediately awoke from the control of the icon and were finally able to move a few steps.
Only Jason's spirit remained motionless.
Because there's one more person in the team.
There was another person who was both a stranger and a familiar face.
There's now someone else I long for.
Wendy Mills hugged Jason.